Shavuot, The Celebration of Arrival
King David wrote in Psalms, Va’ani Tefilla (I am Tefilla). Can you imagine such a thing? Chutzpah! David declares that he is prayer??
How could it be otherwise? If we are truly beings created from God’s hands, infused with the Divine Spirit, how could we be anything but beings of prayer? Each breath that we take is in its quintessential essence, a prayer.
Just before a Jew recites Psalms they utter a prayer which contains these words, “...And from that (utterance of the Holy Name) may be drawn to us an abundant blessing to our spirit, breath and soul, to purify us of our iniquities, to forgive our sins, and to atone for our transgressions, just as You forgave David who recited these very same psalms before You - as it is said: God also has forgiven your sin, you shall not die…"
Remember in the Garden when the Lord God infused into the Man His Divine Breath? Well, that same breath still belongs to the Holy One. It has been lent to us.
The S’fat Emet said in the name of his grandfather, the Hidushei HaRim, that the reason we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot is because Tefilla that we are becomes realized through the given Torah. In other words, the Revelation at Sinai that we celebrate on Shavuot is made holy as we speak of them. That is why we study so late into the night on Shavuot. Each breath of Torah becomes kodesh kodeshim.
And concerning Ruth, what part of her life was not a paean to God? That she was so resolute in her pursuit of becoming Jewish was the reason god granted her the gift of becoming the great grandmother of King David.
At the time of the Giving of Torah each pronouncement, every letter, each utterance, every breath that was spoken by God suffused the universe with the scent of spices (Talmud, Shabbat 88b). The letters themselves danced in the cosmos and entered into the waiting souls at the mountain like fragrant spices which made their spirits rise.
Like David, we strive to become the embodiment of Tefilla. When each act is done for the sake of God, with Torah in the fore of one’s mind, our lives are fully realized.
Every Shabbat and Holy day we remember that David was a Tefilla when we repeat his words, “All my limbs will say, ‘Lord, who is like You?’
The body, breath, constantly prays to its Maker. David understood this truth. That is why our Sages, of blessed memory, tell us that David spent his entire day in Tefilla. If each breath was a prayer David never stopped his conversation with the Almighty. The Talmud reveals that David would rise at midnight to praise the Lord God. He only stopped being a Tefilla when his breath finally ceased. ~ Berachot 10a.
King David instructs us by example of how to strive to live a holy life. Ruth, of course, played a large role in David’s becoming the person he was as she began the process of harnessing the depth of her yearning to be close to God.
Still , there is more. David’s breath, his essence, his true self, passed from this world on Shavuot. His birth date is also his yahrzeit.
Why are we here? What is our function? Why are we alive? Are questions which repeat themselves on every continent, in every place where people live, in every era, by each person. Shavuot provides the answer.
Going back to the Beginning, Torah ends each day of Creation the same way. It concludes the day with a number: “And it was One Day. And it was Day Two…” The odd exception is Day Six there the Torah uses the prefix “Ha” meaning ‘the. Why the anomaly?
For this we need to look to Rashi on first comment to the Torah where he states that the Torah really needs only to begin at the point where the Torah is given. For Rashi and the great sages of the past the narrative of Genesis and the beginning part of Exodus is only a prelude to the real story, the whole purpose of the Universe.
The Talmud too notes the added letter to the sixth day and alerts us to the fact that it is a hint about the importance of the number six. The Torah was introduced into the world on the sixth of Sivan, Shavuot.
From the time when the world was completed on the sixth day until the sixth of Sivan, 2448 years later, the world was in a state of pregnancy, of waiting for the moment when the purpose of Creation would be endowed with meaning.
At the innocuous mountain called Sinai, the people Israel assembles ready to hear the word of God. The often repeated phrase that the Israelites answered when God asked if they were willing to accept His Torah was, “Naase V’nishma – We will obey and we will listen.”
The power of these words is not be underestimated because they are inverted. It ought to read , “We will listen and we will do” but the intentional reversal of the order indicates the a prior willingness to do whatever it was that the Lord God wanted of the people.
This is not the normal order of how people respond or react. They usually ask, “What’s it say in the fine print?” before they commit.
There is a hint of an answer on the Talmud where the famous Rabbi Elazar reveals to us the inner workings of heaven.
“Rabbi Elazar said, ‘When the people of Israel preceded “We will hear” by “We will obey”, a heavenly voice came out of heaven declaring: "Who revealed to My children this secret, which only the angels until now knew? As it is written , 'Praise the Lord, His Angels, Mighty in Strength, who obey His Will, and only then understand His Word' - first obey, and afterward, understand’."
What Rabbi Elazar is telling us is that when Israel responded with those powerful, fateful words, they were repeating verbatim the words of the angels on high.
Angels have no yetser. There is nothing in them that would do anything but the will of the Almighty One. They carry out His instructions perfectly. For them, there is no discussion, no challenge, and no wavering. That is why they would have no difficulty in responding to the One with “Naase V’nishma.”
People, on the other hand, have two yetsers, the yetser ha-tov and the yester ha-ra. Both yetsers operate on the level of the ego. They are desires which are antithetical to godliness. And yet, the Israelite nation responded with the words of the angels on the Day of Revelation as if they did not have a yetser. How is this possible?
On this day with the Lord’s Voice asking them if they want to accept His most precious gift, the personal, egotistical side of the Israelites fled. They were as pure and as whole as the angels waiting to fulfill the will of God.
Does there have to be a gap between heaven and earth?